Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Humans remember the past and use that information to plan future actions. Lab experiments that test memory for the location of food show that animals have a similar capability to act in anticipation of future needs, but less work has been done on animals foraging in the wild. We hypothesized that planning abilities are critical and common in breath...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Underpinning the formation of a social group is the motivation of individuals to aggregate and interact with conspecifics, termed sociability. Here, we developed an assay, inspired by vertebrate approaches to evaluate social behaviours, to simultaneously examine the development of honey bee (Apis mellifera) sociability and nestmate affiliation. Foc...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Skeletal myosin light chain kinase (skMLCK)-catalyzed phosphorylation of the myosin regulatory light chain (RLC) increases (i.e. potentiates) mechanical work output of fast skeletal muscle. The influence of this event on contractile economy (i.e. energy cost/work performed) remains controversial, however. Our purpose was to quantify contractile eco...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Many insects rely on celestial compass cues such as the polarization pattern of the sky for spatial orientation. In the desert locust, the central complex (CX) houses multiple sets of neurons, sensitive to the oscillation plane of polarized light and thus probably acts as an internal polarization compass. We investigated whether other sky compass c...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Invertebrates employ a variety of ammonia excretion strategies to facilitate their survival in diverse aquatic environments, including freshwater, seawater and the water film surrounding soil particles. Various environmental properties set innate challenges for an organism's ammonia excretory capacity. These include the availability of NaCl and the...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Flying insects routinely forage in complex and cluttered sensory environments. Their search for a food or a pheromone source typically begins with a whiff of odor, which triggers a flight response, eventually bringing the insect near the odor source. However, pinpointing the precise location of an odor source requires use of both visual and olfacto...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
The visual system is for many fishes essential in guiding behaviors such as foraging, predator avoidance and mate choice. The marine environment is characterized by large spatiotemporal fluctuations in light intensity and spectral composition. However, visual capabilities are restricted by both space limitations set by eye size, and by the genomic ...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Ant foragers make use of multiple navigational cues to navigate through the world and the combination of innate navigational strategies and the learning of environmental information is the secret of their navigational success. We present here detailed information about the paths of Cataglyphis fortis desert ants navigating by an innate strategy, na...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
The surface temperature of tree branches in the tropical rainforest canopy can reach up to 55°C. Ants and other small cursorial organisms must maintain adequate attachment in this extreme microenvironment to forage effectively and prevent falling. Ant adhesion depends on liquid secretions that should become less viscous at high temperatures, causin...
Published in The Journal of experimental biology
Metabolism, behaviour and growth are highly flexible in fish species, and inter-individual variation in these traits is evolutionarily and ecologically significant. It has long been suggested that these traits co-vary, although their relationships are debated. In the present study, we investigated whether metabolism, behaviour, growth and the poten...
